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Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

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Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#61

Post by chipotle_coyote »

dangus wrote: post #18

I get that it's bad right now, but it hasn't even rolled out fully. It's quite clearly not 100% done or it would be 100% rolled out. This seems like literally one bug.

So if only 50% of the users have this, we should assume that it's only 50% done, and that by the time everyone has this thing, it will be perfect?

More seriously, while "this doesn't work right" is part of the complaint, the larger complaint is "this is fixing something that wasn't really broken." If Slack wanted to improve their editor, that'd be great, but they could have done that without losing what people liked about the old system. It's not like there's a lack of "quasi-WYSIWYG" Markdown editors out there to take cues from.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#62

Post by Aeolun »

exogeny wrote: post #38

I'm going to take the opposite of this argument, and for bonafides, I run the product team for a 1000+ person company. I'm going to assume that this thing was tested out the wazoo, both qualitatively and behind enough feature-flags and buckets to keep Optimizely in business for a year. So I have no doubt that this wasn't just a hunch on their part, but something that they meticulously tracked. If I'm wrong, definitel…

Everyone that was using slack was clearly aware of backticks, underscores, and stars, which is really the most you need, and probably 99% of everything used.

Surrounding some text with these marks to achieve some formatting is hardly rocket science. If someone doesn’t do it it is really because they don’t want to understand.

If you however make an editor that fucks up using any of these marks? Well, that’s a big time failure.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#63

Post by tarikozket »

LilBytes wrote: post #57

The specific example shown in the attached article works fine for me in Slack with the updated editor. ``` when you do `foo()` it foos the bar. ``` Looks fine for me? Only the `foo()` is highlighted, not the entire line as shown. Have they pushed out a fix for this already?

it works for me too. I'm confused...

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#64

Post by Thaxll »

llampx wrote: post #3

I've given up entirely on the Slack desktop app and use Ripcord exclusively. Much faster, more responsive and easier to use for 99% of my time spent on slack.

So Ripcord is making money on illegal thing? Discord / Slack ToS forbids third party app afaik.

Edit: Why am I being downvoted? https://old.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/8tukek/ripcord_...

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#65

Post by sloum »

dang wrote: post #32
nemo44x wrote: post #25

The product manager for this should be reassigned. To not even have the option to opt-out and use the classic input box is ridiculous. Productivity tools need to be very careful about radical change. Especially when the change won’t make anyone more productive.

Please don't cross into personal attack in HN comments. It breaks the site guidelines ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ). Note this one: Be kind. It's hard enough for people to hear criticism or fix mistakes without their head, or a colleague's head, being called for.

The OP said they felt the person should be reassigned. This is hardly a call for termination. It was also accompanied by constructive points about productivity software relevant to the post at hand. I do not believe there was anything unkind in suggesting that maybe the person was in over their head.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#67

Post by bob1029 »

wildmusings wrote: post #24

There is this long-standing bug on mobile versions of slack where large swaths of messages just disappear. The only way to get them back is to sign out and sign back in. This is supposed to replace business email?

You know what largely replaced business email AND these crappy chat applications for us? GitHub issue threads. We do a very large part of our collaboration right next to the code now. Email & chat is now mostly to just asynchronously notify regarding one or more issue numbers. Managers, developers, everyone. If you want something discussed or handled, make an issue. It's got a single numeric identifier that's trivial to pass around, even to clients and end users. Labeling systems applied to issues can quickly turn a messy bucket into a well-oiled software factory. If you use GitHub, this is also a strong argument for a monorepo, as you could have 1 unique identifier for anything across the entire org scope that also links into your code contexts seamlessly.

The UX around GitHub must be incredible for non-developers, because I am watching project managers with zero engineering/coding background learn markdown syntax almost accidentally. In all of our time using GH issues as a collaboration tool, I have heard exactly ZERO complaints regarding anything being broken or unfriendly to use.

We now look back on Teams/Slack/Skype/Email usage as dark days. "How the hell did we ever get anything done?" is the usual take when one of us talks about it.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#68

Post by LilBytes »

tarikozket wrote: post #63
LilBytes wrote: post #57

The specific example shown in the attached article works fine for me in Slack with the updated editor. ``` when you do `foo()` it foos the bar. ``` Looks fine for me? Only the `foo()` is highlighted, not the entire line as shown. Have they pushed out a fix for this already?

it works for me too. I'm confused...

I can only assume it's been fixed then???

Perhaps this is mostly hyperbole to change. I mean, Markdown is amazing. But as stated it was only a `lite` implementation of the editor.

The new editor seems fine for me so far, though I'll gladly be proven wrong.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#69

Post by nerdponx »

Arathorn wrote: post #35

Amusingly, for https://riot.im we just shelved our WYSIWYG editor efforts after trying two completely separate implementations over the years (one via Draft.js, the other via Slate.js) because: a) it's a nightmare to get right, b) nobody used it anyway (it was optional), c) chat isn't a wordprocessor, d) markdown (commonmark) + floating formatting toolbar is good enough. Our current editor was written from scratch (c…

You know what else has a terrible WYSIWYG editor? Microsoft Teams. It's kind of sort of like Markdown, except when it isn't, or when it breaks. At least it's a step up from Lync.

Re: Slack’s new WYSIWYG input box is terrible

#70

Post by ghostcluster »

dicytea wrote: post #26
jakebasile wrote: post #19

Reading their non-replies on Twitter feels like I'm reading something specifically designed to piss me off. Smarmy apologies, low empathy, cocksure of how correct their vision of a chat service should be. This one in particular[1]: > The goal is for workflows to evolve, but we realize change can be a bit of a pain. "Stupid peasant, we are only here to help you. Once you see the glorious vision we have you will thank…

"The WYSIWYG editor is being gradually rolled out over the coming days – if you don't see it in some workspaces, just hang tight, you will soon. " Not to mention, unintentional threats.

This attitude to their rollout reminds me of the recent rollout of Twitter's maligned new desktop UI, the new YouTube Studio Beta, and reddit's new UI.

There is almost a meme of online platform service providers not understanding their users and their workflows, and rolling out new revisions that hamper or outright remove functionality that those users rely on.

I guess the canonical example would be that one Digg redesign that nuked the whole platform, or Snapchat's redesign a year ago that stunted their growth.

Luckily, we haven't had to experience this at Hacker News thus far ;)

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